LMU Latino Theology and Ministry Initiative Events

Event Archive

The annual Hispanic Ministry and Theology Lecture featured Rev. Carlos María Galli, S.T.D., Dean of the Faculty of Theology at the Catholic University of Argentina. The lecture was presented by the LMU Latino/a Theology and Ministry Initiative, and cosponsored by the Office of the University President, Dr. Timothy Law Snyder; Center for Religion and Spirituality, Department of Theological Studies, Campus Ministry, Office of Student Affairs, Jesuit Community of LMU, CSJ Center for Reconciliation and Justice, and the Center for Ignatian Spirituality.

Rabbi Skorka is rector of the Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano in Buenos Aires, the rabbi of the Jewish community Benei Tikva, a professor of biblical and rabbinic literature at the Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano, and honorary professor of Hebrew law at the University of Salamanca.

Ethical issues have plagued baseball since its origins as a professional sport, though the criteria for discerning the morally good from the permanently unforgivable invite deeper scrutiny. For example, performance-enhancing drugs overshadowed both the 2013 Major League Baseball season and the Hall of Fame nomination process. Players anxiously awaited word of impending suspensions and retired All Stars, tainted by the steroid era, failed to make the ranks of the most recent Cooperstown inductees. With attention to the complexity and ambiguity of daily lived experience Latin@ theologies offer insights that challenge simplistic analyses that interpret these matters strictly in terms of cheating and fairness. In light of the 40th anniversary of the induction of Roberto Clemente, the first Latino in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, these issues call for further consideration latinamente.

Fr. Michael Paul Gallagher, S.J. is an Irish Jesuit and Roman Catholic priest as well as an author, professor, and theologian at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, Italy.

Where do cultural wars take place? Perhaps less in our ideas and argued stances than in our self-images and our images of society. We can live with hidden assumptions that are seldom explicit. Here the tensions between the secular and religious horizons are more subtle and complex. We talk about the need for Christian humanism. How can it be imagined and nourished rather than theorized? Partly in the light of the style of Pope Francis, this presentation seeks to open the debate about Christian anthropology towards the realms of spiritual disposition, cultural sensibility, and shared social imagination.

Dr. Timothy Matovina is the author of the recent ground-breaking study Latino Catholicism: Transformation in America’s Largest Church (Princeton University Press, 2012). To view the book's website, click here.

Numbers alone do not define the significance of the Latino presence in the U.S. Catholic Church, nor the presence of peoples of African, Asian, and Native descent. The mutual influence of Catholicism and Latino (as well as Black, Asian, and Native) peoples in the United States is shaping not just the future of American Catholic life, but also the life of the nation. While there are many facets to the Latino presence in U.S. Catholicism, as we commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the opening session of the Second Vatican Council, Dr. Timothy Matovina will focus his remarks on four major contributions to the areas of liturgy, spiritual renewal, faith and justice, and the revitalization of ecclesial life, that Latinos have made to enrich U.S. Catholicism since the Council.

The current, prolonged debate about immigration, especially Latino immigration, continues to ground the discussion in a superficial understanding of the nature, scope and implications of the Latino presence. In this conference Father Allan Figueroa Deck will share a new vision of what Latino immigration is all about based on new scholarship. These findings provide a fuller interpretive framework for the past, present and future of U.S. society and Christianity, and move the conversation beyond the current polarizations.

Archbishop José Gómez of Los Angeles will be joining us for our inaugural lecture. More information about this event will be added as the date approaches. Attendance is free. Please reserve your spot by October 4, 2011.

An increasing majority of Catholics in Southern California are Latino/a. Who are Hispanic Catholics? What are the challenges and opportunities they face? How is the Church being shaped by this community? What does the future hold for the Latino/a Catholic community in relation to the entire Catholic Church in Southern California and beyond? The Latino Catholicism in L.A. discussion sought to conduct an engaging exploration of these vital questions.